Ready? Set. Fall into a pool of existential dread. Or, you know, start writing.
On building a world, being ready to write, and creating
Hello friend, 👋🏾
I’m in the early-ish stages of plotting a new book and experiencing some plot fatigue. I spent the first three months of the year plotting a different book, which is now on submission, and then turned right around to do it again.
I’m always battling inertia, trying to balance rest with continued productivity, but so much plotting and so little writing has been tough for me. And though part of me would love to throw caution to the wind and just start getting some words down, I have enough experience to know that would be a terrible idea. Writing by the seat of my pants just doesn’t work for me.
This particular story has come to me world-first, without well-defined characters or even a solid conflict, just a cool idea for what Mary Robinette Kowal has called a milieu based story. The sense of place is strong, and so I began building out the world, knowing I would find the characters and plot along the way. This is not the way I usually write. However, every story comes differently and I have to honor that in order to tease out what this book really wants to be.
It’s definitely not the most comfortable feeling. Worldbuilding in a vacuum does not work for me. So even as I have been developing the magic system and creating the organizations associated with this location, characters have been taking shape. Who are the people who populate this place? What kinds of goals and secrets could my main character have that would align with this place?
I came across this quote I’d saved from N.K. Jemisin’s very worthwhile lecture on worldbuilding from the WIRED25 conference.
“…character is informed by culture, and culture is informed by environment. In a lot of cases, to understand the character I need to understand literally everything about their world.”
Understanding everything about a character’s world does not necessarily (and in my opinion definitely should not) mean spending fourteen years creating a story bible, which documents an encyclopedic level of data about flora and fauna, economic systems, and weather patterns.
I take Jemisin’s quote to mean that you must understand everything about the world that touches the character. The social structures they participate in. How cultural expectations affect them. How their education and history and hopes were molded. And this does not need to happen before you write a single word. I discover many, many of these things during the first two drafts.
I rarely truly understand my characters before draft three.
I often get asked, “When do you know when you’re ready to start writing?” I’ve absolutely tried to force a story and begin writing it before I was ready. And I’m sure I’ve also begun far later than was necessary out of insecurity on whether I knew enough to get started. But the answer to this question is deeply personal and requires tapping into your writerly intuition.
There’s nothing wrong with starting writing before you’re ready. You’ll just eventually stall out and have to go back and complete the work necessary to get ready.
And aside from potentially butting up against a deadline, there’s nothing really wrong with starting a little late either. I would actually encourage you to start before you feel ready—because how often do we ever really feel ready?—so you can test yourself and discover what ready even means to you. Enough time on task will eventually strengthen the intuition that is so necessary in all creative pursuits.
While I’m in the pre-production phase of a novel, doing the initial plotting and worldbuilding and character development, I keep a list of questions that need to be answered. Some of my current ones include: Where does the magic come from? Does my main character have a hidden power before she learns about magic? How does the villain discover the secret properties of the monsters?
One way I know when I’m ready to start drafting is when I have answers to the questions that I can’t start writing without.
I don’t need all the answers up front. Some will need to be discovered along the way. So, try to figure out the answers to the most vital questions, then start writing. Probably before you feel totally ready. Collect more questions as you draft. Then when you get stuck, answer some more of these questions, hopefully with information you’ve discovered during the writing you’ve done so far.
That’s what’s been working for me. Let me know if you have other techniques or approaches in the comments!
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📝 The Death of the Follower
Patreon co-founder Jack Conte’s keynote from SXSW on “The Death of the Follower & the Future of Creativity on the Web” is a worthwhile watch. He reviews the history of attention on the internet and his experiences as a musician that led him to creating Patreon. And while it does sort of turn into an advertisement for Patreon’s new features, his analysis of where we’ve been and where we’re going as online creators is very useful.
In a time when the bulk of your followers probably don’t see your posts, and when TikTok largely did away with the relevance of the follower entirely, getting attention from the people who really want to see what you do online is tough. Which is why so many creators have been moving to a direct to audience model.
This newsletter goes directly to your inbox. You can purchase many of my books directly from me. Visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, authors, and more are all coming to the same conclusion. Which is why some of us (ahem) spend far more than we ever intended to on paid Substacks, Patreons, and Reams to support folks whose work we cherish.
But in an age when the algorithm isn’t doing us any favors, and is specifically engineered to make money for large corporations, this seems to be the best way forward for now.
I don’t actually want to be considered a “creator.” I’m a writer, an author, a teacher, a web developer, a creative person. I never want to make anything because of an algorithm. I do want to make beautiful, relevant work that impacts people’s lives and makes them want to share it with others. I don’t want to judge myself by my followers, or subscribers, or book sales, even though these metrics can be important to my ability to earn enough money to continue pursuing my passions and, well, live.
But these are the age old struggles of the artist, and we’re all muddling along trying to figure things out as the world and technology constantly changes. This quote was my takeaway from Conte’s presentation:
“Know what you want. What matters to you. What are you trying to achieve as a creative person… Do not forget what matters to you as an artist. Do not forget your purpose for making things in the first place.”
💡Want to learn more about my method of worldbuilding?
Struggling to create a believable and engaging fictional world? Imaginary Worldbuilding: Creating Fictional Worlds for Writers helps you craft a world that readers will adore. You’ll gain confidence in your ability to create an engaging imaginary world and story.
🚀 Quick Bites
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“Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and then go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”
—Howard Thurman, Author & Philosopher.
✨Ink & Magic podcast: Ep 32: Found Family with Melanie Harlow
Join us as we chat with contemporary romance author Melanie Harlow about crafting found family in small town romances. Find out how this plot device isn’t just about banding a bunch of brothers together, it’s all about the worldbuilding of characters in a tight-knit unit that makes readers want to return again and again!
To check out Melanie’s books, go to: https://www.melanieharlow.com/
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